Australia spots two possible objects from missing airliner

Royal Australian Air Force Airborne Electronics Analyst, Flight Sgt. Tom Stewart from 10 Squadron, watches a radar screen over the Southern Indian Ocean while on board an AP-3C Orion off the Western Australian coast during a search operation for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Australia's prime minister said Thursday that two objects possibly related to the missing Malaysia Airlines flight have been spotted on satellite imagery in the Indian Ocean and an air force aircraft was diverted to the area to try to locate them.

The Orion aircraft was expected to arrive in the area Thursday, Prime Minister Tony Abbott told Parliament in Canberra. Three additional aircraft are expected to follow for a more intensive search, he said.

Abbott called it "credible information," saying that after "specialist analysis of this satellite imagery, two possible objects related to the search have been identified."

But Abbott cautioned that locating the objects could be difficult and "it may turn out that they are not related to the search for flight MH370."

He did not say where the objects were. Military planes from Australia, the U.S. and New Zealand were covering a search region over the southern Indian Ocean that was narrowed on Wednesday from 232,000 square miles to 117,000 square miles.

The Boeing 777 disappeared March 8 above the Gulf of Thailand.

Abbott said he spoke to the prime minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak, about the latest developments. Australia's envoy to Malaysia, Rod Smith, joined a meeting of senior Malaysia search officials at a Kuala Lumpur hotel after Abbott's announcement.

Smith did not respond to reporters' questions.

"As I've been doing from day one, I've followed every single lead. And this time, I hope it is a positive development," Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters.

Nearly two weeks after the plane went missing, the FBI has joined forces with Malaysian authorities in analyzing deleted data on a flight simulator belonging to the pilot of the missing jet.

Files containing records of flight simulations were deleted Feb. 3 from the device found in the home of the pilot, Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu said.

It was not clear whether investigators thought that deleting the files was unusual. They might hold hints of unusual flight paths that could help explain where the missing plane went, or the files could have been deleted simply to clear memory for other material.

Hishammuddin told a news conference Wednesday that Zaharie is considered innocent until proven guilty. He said members of the pilot's family are cooperating in the investigation.

Zaharie was known to some within the online world of flight simulation enthusiasts.